Darrel Ellis

Darrel Ellis (1958, 1992) was an American artist based in New York City whose work explored themes of identity, memory, and family history through painting, drawing, and photography. He is particularly known for his deeply personal reinterpretations of photographs taken by his father, Robert Ellis, a photographer who was killed by police when Darrel was just three years old. Ellis's practice blended abstraction with portraiture, creating dreamlike, layered images that examined Black identity, loss, and the construction of selfhood.